0000041223 00000 n He surely loved the way the biofuel boom has farmers worldwide scrambling to plant corn and soy and drench the earth with agrichemicals. Secretary Earl Butz was the was the Secretary of Agriculture during President Nixon ' s term . Despite helping to eradicate acute hunger and malnutrition, the bill devastated small farmers and contributed to decreasing the number of farms in America by 63%, effectively changing rural landscapes and economies. A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz Industrial agriculture lost one of its greatest champions last week: Earl "Rusty" Butz, secretary of the USDA under. Farm costs, per unit of production, then would rise. 0000071933 00000 n You are the most productive part of America! Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died this weekend at 98, leaving a colorfully offensive legacy and, thanks to the political correctness of the mainstream news media, a bit of a mystery as to why he's died in such ignominy. Land Ordinance of 1785. Stanford University. 0000046462 00000 n Butz had a similar view, "Get big or get out." Butz believed farm consolidation was inevitable. The events that really led to Butz's predominance in the United States Government's internationalagriculture decisions began early last summer when it became clear the Russians would need grain. 0000029494 00000 n Earl Butz has devoted more than 20 years of his life in public and academic service: as an Assistant Secretary in the Eisenhower administration; as a professor and then a dean at one of the most distinguished universities . Plant fence row to fence row, he exhorted from his bully pulpit. (The habit of stuffing the USDA with industry cronies has proven hard to break. 0000049770 00000 n This benefits farmers and the American agricultural industry as a whole, as the nation doesn't have to import corn grown in another country. 0000044615 00000 n In public he seemed to be formal, but person-to-person, he was like any of the rest of us. D. in agricultural economics (1937) from Purdue University. 0000052132 00000 n Ulrike Butz. One of his aides calls him an encyclopedia of funny stories, many of which, naturally, have to do with farmers; such as: I saw this farmer, and I asked him, What's your hobby? He said, Farming. I said, What would you do if you inherited a million dollars? He said, I'd keep on farming as long as the money lasted. His jokes have occasionally gotten him into troublelike the one in which he ridiculed the Pope's stand against artificial birth control by saying: He no playa da game; he no makea da rules. The remark brought a storm of protest from Catholics and ItalianAmericans, and resulted in one of Butz's rare apologies. The program that Butz inherited worked like this: When farmers began to produce too much and prices began to fall, the government would pay farmers to leave some land fallow, with the goal of pushing prices up the following season. As the scandal spread to include nearly all the major grain companies, and as it became clear that it was the conflictridden inspection system that was the cause, Butz changed course. 0000045725 00000 n Second, Butz was an advocate of modernizing the farm; to many, this really meant doing away with the family farm and promoting bigness in agriculture. Nixon plucked Butz out of Purdues agriculture department and planted him in the USDA in 1971. Out of the unsettling agricultural and economic events of 1972, the beginnings of a robust agricultural monitoring program were born. I got a royal welcomenot because I was Secretary of Agriculture. "[11] Through a spokesman, he stated that media outlets had taken this portion of his statement out of their original context, which was that of retelling a joke. For Butz and his agribusiness cronies, the program amounted to socialism an intolerable check on farmers ability to plant and harvest as much as possible. Dr. Earl L. Butz, educator, administrator, and government official was born on July 3, 1909 to Harmon Lee Butz and Ada Tillie Lower in Albion, Indiana. He died still holding an emeritus position at Purdue. Butz has passed on, but fence-row-to-fence-row agriculture and its vast environmental footprint lives. We hit your inbox once a month and never abuse your personal information. 7. Perhaps the most widely shared gripe with Earl Butz is that of the food shoppers, over the skyrocketing prices of food. 0000061644 00000 n Argued Nov. 7, 1977. . But the ag policies of the day encouraged restraint. The policy of "get big or get out" and the advancement of industrial agriculture through the displacement of small farmers was a deliberate attempt to consolidate power in the hands of a select few agribusinessmen and politicians. They include the discovery of inorganic chemical inputs, mechanization, specialization . 0000010640 00000 n October 11th, 2021. One Iowa land excavator told the Journal that farmers are trying to squeeze everything they can out of their land. Throughout the Grain Belt, abandoned farmhouses were burned to the ground, cleared, and incorporated into ever-larger corn and soy fields. startxref Until the 1920s, agricultural policy targeted territorial expansion, and as farms thrived, the relationship between rural and urban markets fostered the growth of American cities. Agriculture expanded early American cities and fostered a booming urban population. And Brunthaver has since returned to Cook. Butz had helped to arrange that sale in the hope of giving a boost to crop prices to bring restive farmers tempted to vote for George McGovern into the Republican fold.[10]. 0000071573 00000 n [28], Butz continued to serve on corporate boards and speak on agricultural policy. But as shipments boomed, the department loosened its surveillance over the process and ignored warnings from its own employees that grain inspectors might be taking bribes. High Agriculture Department officials began refusing to answer questions relating to grain sales to Russia and to Eastern European countries, saying sareastically that the diplomats had taken over. On the one hand, the high production can lead to big surpluses and big drops in farm prices. 0000056400 00000 n 0000029636 00000 n Butz should be praying for drought right now, says one observer. Nevertheless, he was confirmed in the Senate by a close vote of 51 to 44. In 1972, the Soviet Union, suffering disastrous harvests, purchased 30 million tons of American grain. 0000050911 00000 n 0000060947 00000 n He emphasizes that the flight from the farms to the cities has slowed down during his reign; that the decrease of 11,000 farm units in 1975 is well below the annual decrease of more than 95,000 before 1969. Rather, this reader says, Butz was making a coarse and simpleminded joke about the popes own celibacy. 0000029154 00000 n 0000029565 00000 n [12], News outlets revealed a racist remark he made in front of entertainers Pat Boone and Sonny Bono and former White House counsel John Dean while aboard a commercial flight to California following the 1976 Republican National Convention. While controversial, President Richard Nixons 1973 farm bill lessened acute hunger and malnutrition. [3], Butz was an alumnus of Purdue University, where he was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/CAT87210025/PDF, Bittman, Mark, Dont End Agricultural Subsidies, Fix Them., United States v. Butler. Legal Information Institute. You Are What You Grow.. [citation needed], For example, he abolished a program that paid corn farmers to not plant all their land. In 1973, Nixon's agricultural secretary, Earl Butz, oversaw a change in the philosophy of the U.S. farm program. How does corn get in your hair King corn? 0000011491 00000 n Under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, Roosevelt passed the inaugural farm bill, which subsidized farmers to limit their production. He was the eldest of five children and worked on his parents' 160-acre (65ha) farm while growing up. Earl Lauer Butz was born near Albion, Indiana, on July 3, 1909. 0000029778 00000 n For a few years, those actions seemed like a good business decision. 0000046978 00000 n University of Washington researcher Adam Drewnowski found that one dollar purchased 1,200 calories of cookies, but only 250 calories of carrots. %%EOF I told him, You've got too many instant experts on agriculture in the White House They're brilliant people, but with no judgment. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); A nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Reading Eagle . Earl Butz, who died on Saturday aged 98, served as US Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and courted scandal by telling offensive jokes; he was eventually . His technique, Foreman says, is to pose as friend of the farmer and try to pit him against consumers. 0000063693 00000 n 20In response to the unanticipated prices, Nixon declared a war on hunger, and promised the American people, I not only accept the responsibility for ending hunger and malnutrition, I claim the responsibility. 21. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. 0000004995 00000 n Butz, who lived in West Lafayette, Ind., was 98. The October 18, 1976, issue of Time reported the comment while obscuring its vulgarity:[13]. 0000062821 00000 n [25] In this debate he defended what he saw as the achievements of an industrial agriculture that was replacing the longstanding structure of small family farms and rural communities. Today, expansion-based policy characteristic of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has returned. At height of the so-called Green Revolution and firmly in the Cold War mindset, he was referring to the American policy of fighting famine worldwide to defend against political unrest and the spread of communism. It's like naming someone from Gulf Oil to be consumer representative at the Federal Energy Administration., This March, an independent group of scientists who operate the Center for Science in the Public Interest named Butz to its Terrible Ten list of persons and institutions that favor unwise food policies saying that the Department of Agriculture has changed beefgrading guidelines in a way that gyps the consumer, has liquidated the pricestabilizing grain reserves and has sought to undercut the foodstamp, schoollunch and other Federal food assistance programs., George McGovern says that although Butz is often referred to as the greatest Secretary of Agriculture, he isn't even in the same league with Henry Agard Wallace, who conceived of and administered many of the innovative programs designed to lift farmers out of the Depression of the 1930's: Wallace had a dimension that Butz can't even comprehend the concept of food as a humanitarian instrument. 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